Friday, October 07, 2011

In Obama's style of demagoguery, people today don't have jobs because those evil Republicans are blocking his miraculous jobs plan that would help people get to work. Ignore for a few minutes that there is no real evidence that his proposals would lead to greater employment when he's just repeating the same thing that he did in his first stimulus bill, but just spending about half as much money. If it didn't work before, why would rinsing and repeating with less money be more successful now?

“I had a chance to meet a young man named Robert Baroz. He’s an English teacher in Boston who came to the White House a few weeks ago. He’s got two decades of teaching experience. He’s got a Master’s Degree. He’s got an outstanding track record of helping his students make huge gains in reading and writing,” the president said.

“In the last few years, he’s received three pink slips because of budget cuts. Why wouldn’t we want to pass a bill that puts somebody like Robert back in the classroom teaching our kids?”

Baroz had gotten a job since he talked to the President, but that is beside the point. So is the fact that he didn't really meet with Obama, just his aides.

I have two colleagues who worked in Boston public schools and they both described the pressure that the school union representatives put on individual teachers not to spend additional time beyond the contracted hours helping students. They were told not to come to work early or stay after school tutoring students because that wasn't in the contract and weakened the position of the more malleable teachers who obeyed their union reps.

If Baroz is indeed such a good teacher, there should be a job for him. But rather than the temporary aid that Obama's aid package includes, what would be much better would be for Massachusetts to lift its cap on charters so that dedicated teachers can find a permanent place to teach. It is the teachers unions that are fighting to stop that from happening. And which party have those unions become the bulwark of? And which candidate will they be fighting to reelect next year? You got it.

It's not the evil Republicans whose policy choices mean that a gifted teacher keeps losing his job; it is the policy choices of the Democratic Party's close allies who have created an environment where mediocre, but senior teachers stay employed and the younger, more dedicated teachers scramble to find work.